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Yamaha XG (Extended General MIDI) is an extension to the General MIDI standard, created by Yamaha. It is similar in purpose to the Roland GS standard.
Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of available instruments from 128 to 480 with an additional 11 drum kits and introduced a large set of standard controllers and parameters that composers could employ to achieve greater subtlety and realism in their compositions. The XG also has a synthesizer that provides a 32/64 note polyphonic feature which is shared through the supported 16 MIDI channels. XG has a wide range of sounds to form such complex chords and produces a wide variety of lower synthesizer sounds to choose from.
A subset known as "XGlite" is featured in most of Yamaha's lower-end electronic keyboard products such as the PSR/PortaTone line. It features a reduced set of 361 instruments (381 in some models) and greatly simplified effect parameters and controllers.
In 1994, Yamaha released the first XG-based product: Yamaha MU80 Tone Generator. In 1995, Yamaha released the first XG-based product for PC users, the DB50XG daughterboard, a Creative Wave Blaster competitor. In 1996, Yamaha released MU10 external module, basically, a DB50XG in a case and later the SW60XG ISA PC card and the DB51XG a smaller version of the DB50XG daughterboard. Coupled with their tone generator, these devices included an onboard 4 MB sound bank chip of sampled instruments and became highly desirable among MIDI fans due to their crisp, high-quality sounds similar to the newer models of Roland Sound Canvas [ citation needed ]. These devices feature an effects processing system with individual stereo reverb and chorus effects on any of 16 channels, the ability to route any of the channels through an additional 'insertion' effect, and even guitar amp and wah-wah pedal simulations. Yamaha's in-house songwriters often utilized these tools to demonstrate the power of the XG format, notably recreating Jimi Hendrix leads complete with feedback, flamenco guitar with distinct pick/hammered notes and finger slides, growling saxophones, and even a very convincing sitar .
The DB50XG, DB51XG, SW60XG and SW1000XG are all discontinued.
The SW1000XG was popular in the professional music industry, and many of Yamaha's amateur and professional keyboards implement either XG or a subset, known as "XGlite". Many notebooks include the Yamaha YMF7xx chipset which has a scaled-down XG-compatible MIDI synth. The DB60XG, a DB50XG with an analog input, is available only in Japan. .Most XG standard tone generators can switch itself into TG300B mode, which is an emulation of the competing Roland GS standard that allows adequate playback of musical data bearing the GS logo.
The XG-compatible Yamaha S-YXG50 SoftSynthesizer, which is discontinued, is an entirely software-based MIDI synth. It used a 2 MB or 4 MB wavetable sound set, and was common among non-professional users who needed a cheap, high-quality MIDI synthesizer for purposes such as playing video games that rely on MIDI for their music.
Korg, due to its close relationship with Yamaha, released three instruments with XG compatibility:
Korg was the only manufacturer outside of Yamaha to produce XG-certified instruments.
MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing, and recording music.
Digital waveguide synthesis is the synthesis of audio using a digital waveguide. Digital waveguides are efficient computational models for physical media through which acoustic waves propagate. For this reason, digital waveguides constitute a major part of most modern physical modeling synthesizers.
The Roland D-50 is a synthesizer produced by Roland and released in April of 1987. Its features include digital sample-based subtractive synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analog synthesis-styled layout design. The external Roland PG-1000 (1987) programmer could also be attached to the D-50 for more complex manipulation of its sounds. It was also produced in a rack-mount variant design, the D-550, with almost 450 user-adjustable parameters.
A MIDI controller is any hardware or software that generates and transmits Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) data to MIDI-enabled devices, typically to trigger sounds and control parameters of an electronic music performance. They most often use a musical keyboard to send data about the pitch of notes to play, although a MIDI controller may trigger lighting and other effects. A wind controller has a sensor that converts breath pressure to volume information and lip pressure to control pitch. Controllers for percussion and stringed instruments exist, as well as specialized and experimental devices. Some MIDI controllers are used in association with specific digital audio workstation software. The original MIDI specification has been extended to include a greater range of control features.
A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a piano-style musical keyboard. Sound modules have to be operated using an externally connected device, which is often a MIDI controller, of which the most common type is the musical keyboard. Another common way of controlling a sound module is through a sequencer, which is computer hardware or software designed to record and playback control information for sound-generating hardware. Connections between sound modules, controllers, and sequencers are generally made with MIDI, which is a standardized interface designed for this purpose.
There have been various families of Yamaha audio controllers labelled as YMF7xx.
The Yamaha Motif is a series of music workstation synthesizers, first released by Yamaha Corporation in August 2001. The Motif replaced the EX series in Yamaha's line-up and was also based on the early Yamaha S series. Other workstations in the same class are the Korg Kronos and the Roland Fantom G. The series' successor is Yamaha Montage, released in 2016, followed up by the Yamaha Montage M in 2023.
A clonewheel organ is an electronic musical instrument that emulates the sound of the electromechanical tonewheel-based organs formerly manufactured by Hammond from the 1930s to the 1970s. Clonewheel organs generate sounds using solid-state circuitry or computer chips, rather than with heavy mechanical tonewheels, making clonewheel organs much lighter-weight and smaller than vintage Hammonds, and easier to transport to live performances and recording sessions.
A wind controller, sometimes referred to as a wind synthesizer, is an electronic wind instrument. It is usually a MIDI controller associated with one or more music synthesizers. Wind controllers are most commonly played and fingered like a woodwind instrument, usually the saxophone, with the next most common being brass fingering, particularly the trumpet. Models have been produced that play and finger like other acoustic instruments such as the recorder or the tin whistle. The most common form of wind controller uses electronic sensors to convert fingering, breath pressure, bite pressure, finger pressure, and other gesture or action information into control signals that affect musical sounds. The control signals or MIDI messages generated by the wind controller are used to control internal or external devices such as analog synthesizers or MIDI-compatible synthesizers, synth modules, softsynths, sequencers, or even non-instruments such as lighting systems.
The Roland SC-55 is a GS MIDI sound module released in 1991 by Roland. The SC-55 was the first sound module to incorporate the new General MIDI standard. It was the first in the Roland Sound Canvas series.
General MIDI Level 2 or GM2 is a specification for synthesizers which defines several requirements beyond the more abstract MIDI standard and is based on General MIDI, GS extensions, and XG extensions. It was adopted in 1999 by the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA).
Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is a MIDI specification. It requires that all GS-compatible equipment must meet a certain set of features and it documents interpretations of some MIDI commands and bytes sequences, thus defining instrument tones, controllers for sound effects, etc.
A guitar synthesizer is any one of a number of musical systems that allow a guitarist to access synthesizer capabilities.
The Yamaha CS2x is a sample-based synthesizer released by the Yamaha Corporation in 1999. The CS2x is designed for maximum real-time control, according to Yamaha. It is the successor of the very successful Yamaha CS1x. Enhancements include 64-note polyphony, a bigger sample ROM, a 24 dB/oct LPF/HPF filter and a two-band EQ per part/layer. The CS acronym stands for Control Synthesizer.
Roland Juno-G is a music workstation/synth introduced in 2006 by Roland Corporation. It is based on the Fantom-X series, having a vintage design that resembles the first Juno synthesizers, such as the Juno-106. The Juno-G's main competitors in the approximate price range, with similar features, when first released, were the Korg Triton Le/TR and Yamaha MO6 workstation synthesizers.
The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16 and Sound Blaster AWE32 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer. For General MIDI scores, the Wave Blaster's wavetable-engine produced more realistic instrumental music than the SB16's onboard Yamaha-OPL3.
The Yamaha PSR-E323, also known as the YPT-320, is an electronic keyboard manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation in 2009. It is a basic home keyboard intended for learning and personal use.
The Roland ED SC-8850 is a GS-compatible MIDI sound module released in 1999 by Roland under the name RolandED. The SC-8850 was the first sound module to incorporate the new General MIDI Level 2 standard. The SC-8850 uses a PCM sampling engine based on that of the SC-88 Pro, and supports 128-voice polyphony with 64-part multitimbrality. It came preloaded with the soundsets of all older Sound Canvas models, as well as the CM-32 and MT-32. Aimed at personal computer users, the SC-8850 features 1,703 instrument patches, including the GS sounds and additional GM2 sounds. The selection of effects includes reverb, chorus, and Roland's own Insertion EFX, which adds effects like vibrato, distortion, tremolo, etc.